Hell on Wheels: "A New Birth of Freedom"Review

This was a dull episode. No way around it. It didn't have a whole lot to stand on and an exposition episode this early should feel like it's building toward something—which this definitely did not.

We opened on Bohannan looking through a photo of Union soldiers, presumably the ones that killed his wife. The last one is a Sgt. Harper. Before starting work, Bohannan asked the entire crew if they knew where a certain Harper was and someone responded 20 miles back. He left to go find him and on his way he ran into Lily and Joseph.

Lily's storyline so far has felt like it's aiming toward something... but nothing in particular. She's been attacked by Cheyenne warriors, watched her husband murdered, wandered around for a while with a bunch of maps and suddenly saved again by Joseph. In "A New Birth of Freedom," Bohannan took out the arrow lodged in her shoulder and helped her back into the city while Joseph snuck back into town. On their way back, Bohannan shot a few dudes again and the body count is starting to pile up. Suddenly Bohannan isn't so bent on revenge as he is just straight murdering people.

Joseph spoke to the reverend about the incident and mentioned his brother was likely the one that put the arrow in her and the reverend advised Joseph to never speak of that to anyone.

Then Doc stepped in during a speech the reverend was giving and spoke of fighting the savage Indians, who are attempting to live among us and infiltrate us.

Bohannan always wins Rock, Paper, Scissors, Gun.

The good thing is this comes across clearly as a man with a racist belief system. We've seen enough of the Native Americans to know they're a group of individuals, including some who aim to hurt other people and some who wish to assimilate. This is a tough thing to do in shows that deal with racism, as Sons of Anarchy showed in Season 1. That's hard work and good writing paid off.

The bad thing is Joseph's disillusionment comes off as childish and simple. "They would assume that I shot an arrow into her, but why, since I believe in Jesus now???" The writing for this should've been better and maybe some more exposition before this would've led to a smoother transition. That doesn't excuse it, though.

Aside from this, the episode didn't hold much water. Elam attempted to act as a boss and the other workers called him a house negro. So he dug right in the trenches with the rest of them. A good boss. He then attempted to get a hooker and was turned down and laughed at - because he's black. Elam has been somewhat refreshing for a depiction of a man facing 1865 racism. I was skeptical when I first saw Common in this, but he's done a pretty decent job.

Who knows where Hell on Wheels goes from here. By episode three, we, the viewers, should see some major plot arc forming. Hell seems more dystopic than structured and the storylines are meandering. If it decides to be a show that covers a weekly topic under the thin veil of history, so be it, but this wasn't a particularly good episode. If it decides to start a war between the railroad builders and the Cheyenne natives, it's got some work to do.

I still think there's something to this series. If I had to guess, it hits its stride in Season 2 -- should it reach that point -- but for right now the dots they're trying to connect are pretty far apart.